I obtained my red Wrangler in 1996 from Chrysler, Jeep's parent. Two years later the company was bought by Daimler, the German manufacturer of Mercedes Benz among other vehicles. After the Germans became totally flummoxed by Detroit's ways, Chrysler passed into the hands of something called Cerberus, a private equity firm. What were they thinking? Daimler, famously, had actually paid Cerberus a couple of billion to take the thing off their hands.
After all of that, who might be dumb enough to buy the company from Cerberus? C'est moi.
And who will my new partner be in this venture, you may ask? Fiat, an Italian motor company. If Chrysler had grown up in Europe, it would have been Fiat, a near hapless organization controlled by the European equivalent of the Fords, the Agnellis. Fiat and the United Automobile Workers union will run this new entity after it emerges from a forced bankruptcy. Taxpayers will be junior partners, which gives new meaning to the concept of "junior." What German efficiency could not do, Italian design will do?
Let's face facts: Chrysler, and GM too, have not really been capitalist entities for some time; they have been social and political entities, small welfare states. Congress, especially the Michigan delegations, have protected these welfare states for decades. The bankruptcy and worker, taxpayer, Fiat ownership merely concedes this truth. Obama's excoriating of holdout bondholders cements the end of capitalist Detroit. Those bonds were owned by non-UAW union pension funds, 401K accounts, etc, but who cares when you're talking about political theatre.
As it happens, someone slammed into the rear end of our other Jeep, a 2000 Cherokee, this week. I have just reminded my insurance company, that, since we now own Jeep together, it's in our best interests to make sure that the settlement is more than eminently fair.
Don't you agree, Comrades?
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